Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey ( La Junta ( Colorado ), September 17, 1935 - Eugene ( Oregon ), 10 November 2001 ) was an American writer who played a prominent role in the emergence of the counterculture in the 50s and 60s in the United States . Kesey had the typical childhood of the model-American: he received a Christian education, and it did well at school, with wrestling , and had a brilliant academic career ahead. He indeed went to Stanford University , where he underwent an experience that would radically change his life. To earn money, he participated in a study of the Faculty of Psychology in which the effects of using drugs (including LSD and mescaline ) were tested. Drugs would be a recurring phenomenon in Keseys life and he decided to become a writer. To make a living, he was servant room of a psychiatric ward in a local hospital, which gave him the inspiration for his first novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ( 1962 ). Before writing his second book Kesey moved to La Honda in California . Here he wrote Sometimes a Great Notion ( 1964 ), a novel about the contrast between the typical individualism of the West Coast and the intellectualism of the east coast. That Kesey felt showed the parties he gave to the first drawn. They had a unique character with psychedelic effects such as light shows , fluorescent paint and the use of LSD.Ironically enough Kesey therefore called these parties Acid Tests . A group that performed regularly was The Warlocks. She would later widely known as The Grateful Dead . In 1964 organized Kesey and his friends - who are the Merry Pranksters called - a trip to New York . who would become famous Neal Cassady and Kesey were in turn behind the wheel of a bus which was bizarre decked and which ended up in the strangest places. The bus was symbolic of the counterculture in America. The bus named 'Furthur' and its typical Merry Prankster-artistic expressions was the renewal of the symbol and of being different than the "rest": "Are you on or off the bus?" the slogan was. Large parts of the trip were captured on film, which was later used at celebrations organized by Kesey. In New York learned Kesey other leaders of the Beat Generation know: Jack Kerouac , Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary . Meanwhile, the authorities had also dropped their eye on the representatives of the 'new age' and Kesey was arrested for using marijuana . After his release from prison Kesey moved to Pleasant Hill ( Oregon ) to devote himself to his family. Only in 1992 he published his third novel Sailor Song, although he did have published smaller works. In 2001 Kesey died at the age of 66 from the effects of liver cancer . Work * One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) * Sometimes a Great Notion (1964) * Kesey's Garage Sale (1972) * Demon Box (1986) * Caverns (1990) * The Further Inquiry (1990) * Sailor Song (1992) * Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear (1992) * Last Go Round (1994) * The Sea Lion: A Story of the Sea Cliff People (1995) * Twister (1999) Category:American writer Category:Beat Generation Category:Hippie Culture Category:1935 births Category:2001 deaths